arguably too many. >> we have a little game called last word. >> yes. >> do you have a last word for us? >> well, on the fiscal cliff, i wish it were different, but it certainly is beginning to shape up like, in the end, the democrats will be able to step back and say we raised taxes on rich people and the republicans will take credit for cutting programs. and it looks like it will go into january, unfortunately. the market doesn't seem to care. >> all the big deal, boehner and obama tried to do last year, still have to do that, simpson boles-type thing. >> by what the secretary of the treasury said yesterday. >> right. >> thank you for being here. >> bromance. a lot of fun. make sure you join us tomorrow. "squawk on the street" begins right now. good thursday morning,

welcome to "squawk on the street" live from the new york stock exchange, i'm carl kin ten nia with melissa lee, cramer and neighborer are off today but we are joined by dennis. good morning to you dennis, thanks for coming in. futures today, a lot to deal with as you probably know. the fiscal cliff headline watch continues. you just heard john kanas say the market not too concerned. futures up 21 points. decent data out of europe, we will talk about in a minute what a day for the asian markets again. also coming up. our road map begins at andrews air force base where the president arrives in a couple of hours, cutting his hawaiian vacation short to address the fiscal cliff s there really any hope in the last attempt? does the market fade if there's no news tomorrow night? >> the nikkei continues its 21-month run. how much is the boj willing to put up with? >> looking a at potential strike in the nation's port on the east

and southern coast, the first since '77 that could cost retailers and importers billions. businesses now asking its white house to get involved. you can now get the nokia lumia for free, depending on the service provider contract you sign s that standard practice or a sign the company's flagship phone suspect selling well? we will start off with news about the fiscal cliff. congress returning to capitol hill today to try to get a deal done on the cliff before the deadline on december 31st. senate majority leader harry reid is working to see if the scaled backpackage the president laid out last week can get through congress before monday. meantime, treasury secretary timothy geithner says the government will hit the debt ceiling on monday and he is launching an emergency plan to avert a crisis.

amm eamon javers is live. what do we know? >> the president is coming back early, a couple days earlier than his vacation. did a little bit of jogging, working out in the gym over his vacation. now he will be,ing would out on this fiscal cliff. the senate is coming back and the house of representatives is going to have a conference call for all republicans later on today and then yesterday, we saw the secretary of the treasury, tim geithner, announced the $16.4 trillion debt limit is going to be reached by monday, that was a little bit surprising to people who haven't been following this kind of thing and raises the stakes for the fiscal cliff end game because the white house had wanted a debt ceiling deal as part of the overall deal here on the fiscal cliff. republicans have been resisting that by announcing the debt ceiling limit will be held on monday, ratchets up the pressure to include the debt ceiling piece in the final package, whatever that may be, but still not clear, carl, there is going to be a final package of any

kind. one quick note, we saw the realism. pact in the real world of the debt situation. treasury announcing yesterday it has suspended the sale of state and local government securities, government series securities. so already, they are doing some maneuvering here financially to try to avoid that debtly limit. the treasury secretary says he doesn't know how much wiggle room they are going to have, given that all the fiscal cliff uncertainty is out there. >> eamon, on this idea that the house members get called back with 48 hours' notice. traders are looking for that headline if it happens almost that bleed out there or procedural moment where that is announced, so to speak? >> a good question. i have been in touch with republican leadership about that today. what they have said is they have told their members they are going to give them 48 hours' notice. now, that would be typically in an e-mail alert to those members' offices but we would find out about it relatively shortly thereafter. you would expect if they would

be called back here to vote on monday that on saturday, we would have some indication that that's, in fact, going to happen. that's just a promise from the leaders. you know, anything could happen here. it could be the case they have to call them back on short notice but the leadership has told its members to be ready to come back on 48 hours' notice. they will work with the airlines and get them back here to vote on something if there's nothing vote on. >> travel won't be an issue at all. thanks, eamon. eamon javers. those that don't live in new york, here is look at the tabloids this morning. the "new york post," off the fiscal cliff. this fall is really going to hurt. ben white of morning money, dennis, said an excuse to get a bic can keeney on the cover. >> relatively slow news day. what geithner did yesterday is almost as if he is strapping a damsel in distress to the tracks and saying the stakes are rising higher. the markets are taking all this tension, all this sort of -- these things at stake to really make the point perhaps that you have to have those stakes really high for people actually to get a deal.

>> on "fast" last night when that letter crossed in the green rooms, we were chatting, we said this sounds like a ploy on the part of the treasury to actually get people to start moving. obviously, there wasn't a market selloff, did have the stumbling blocks and traders on friday said almost better if we did see the markets pull back more to crystallize what this could mean for the u.s. economy to members of congress. we didn't see that. it is a numbers game though in terms of what will happen. we know need 60 votes to clear a fill buster in the senate. seven republicans need to go along a lot of jockeying that needs to be done, even if we have a deal put forth. >> interesting what the market is pricing in. we thought the market wanted a grand deal. clearly, dennis you willing to put up with a band-aid. >> i have been surprised how static it has been, the stock and the bond markets, carl. i think the market, i think, has internalized that idea we are just going to shuffle along for a period, the beginning of january. then for another six to nine months. the bigger question really becomes beyond the equity market

in particular, becomes the real functioning economy of this country. we are going to be stuck again. we went through sandy, that was a natural disaster, to think that all this really is man made, still boggles the mind. >> sickening. especially with claims back to 350, decent number this morning. >> there is a little bit of interpretation to that. to think that the government, federal government certainly was closed on monday and tuesday, some of the state government was closed for both days, one of those days as well, saying maybe it came in a little bit light. some interpretation but funny to see all the headlines crossing this morning saying the futures were moving based on claims or the treasuries based on claims numbers and not what was going on on the fiscal cliff. >> a crummy start to the year we get a fourth strike on top of all that, true. >> not such a crummy year for japan. japanese stocks rallying you can the yen continuing its slide against the dollar in all the major currencies, in fact. asian markets mixed overnight trading. the nikkei climbing to a closing

level not seen since just before the march 2011 earthquake, marking a third day of gains, mostly drive bine hopes for a new stimulus policy. the yen is sitting closes to the lowest level since september 2010 against the dollar. interesting here because now a lot of people are saying the best or the hottest trade in 2013 will, in fact, be long japanese stocks and short the yen because what's different this time around, now there is an actual target, 90 is the target. we know where it is going to go. if they are able to weaken the yen to that point, it is a core roll lary stocks will go higher, exactly what happened with the united states, ben bernanke ease he can the monetary policy and the 14% gain in the stock market this year. >> seen the yen basically strangling japanese exports for so long. >> exactly. >> so you know, obviously i the reason to go long those japanese stocks. >> of course, by exporters, all you out there toyota, honda motor, that's investigation sport-driven economy. >> nissan, sony. all the like. >> you know a lot more about currencies than most of us, if

you're in yen, right, your cross counts for a lot too, right? >> that's true r. >> whether you're dollar, euro? >> it's true, although the yen is showing weakening against all 16 major currencies. this is across all crosses and, yes, you'll get the most bang for your buck, so to speak, depending what cross. >> okay, melissa, sort of gotten the idea this time they mean it right? putting a target out there >> inflation target as well. >> do we really mean they really mean it? seen so many boj strat teen jcj edge judges. >> they will act through rates. here in the u.s., where are we? zero no room to have any more impact at this point. that is different. one of the points made by jeff

gunlop, his presentation he made a couple weeks ago, outlining he would be short yen and long japanese stocks. >> people watching not just january but china. ir ir ir iron oar a lot. >> let's get more insight from steve from web bush securities. how much of a nail biter is this for you in terms of fiscal cliff and the markets? >> i think pretty clear at this point that if there's a deal coming, it's gonna be coming very, very soon. i think the markets discounted the fact we are going to get some sort of deal t has held up fairly well here and i think if we don't get a deal, we will see

a selloff. i don't know how considerable, but certainly see the 2, 3% decline in the market. >> does it amaze you, steve, that the markets, in your view, still consider a given that we are going to reach a deal? here we are thursday, december 27th. they still haven't issued a 48-hur notice for congress to return to capitol hill and yet you're saying the markets have baked in some sort of deal? >> yeah, i think so. i don't in he isly think the deal happened december 31st. if we pass waite without a deal earthquake the market will think something is going to happen in early january this is the way washington works, they walk right up to the edge of the deal, maybe even past the edge of the deal and then something happens. i still think the market believes there will be a deal, but it is a deal that might happen on january 14th. so, i don't think december 31st is a real deadline, in the mark it's mind. >> steve, tell us, what are the things that can happen that will

sort of rouse the market here, move the market up or down ire way? >> well, first of all, i think the tendency for the market right now is to go higher because you have zero interest rates and zero interest rates act as a tremendous stock market flotation device. opposing investments are, you know, yielding essentially nothing at this point, so stocks become very attractive. but i still think the big story and the stories that most traders will be watching is the fiscal cliff so that's story number one. an interesting thing happened yesterday and that's the price of oil traded to an all-time high going back to october, not an all-time high, but a high going back to october f that continues, that could be a bit of a negative here, we are starting to see a rally in some metal prices as well, commodities perking up, might be inflation coming in, something to keep an eye on. >> at what point, steve, i mean, if we fall, we have been -- i don't know why, for some reason, the 500, 600-point level appears

to be people's favorite talking point now, say we gave up 500, 600 points where would be your entry point to buy? you believe this would eventually get settled but wouldn't be anything that would happen in the next couple of weeks? >> i anywhere -- any kind of significant decline of say 2 to 5% or 3 to 5%s, it's driven by them saying the absolute reality of deal is going to fall apart. booth parties walk away, not going to be a deal ever kind of comments start coming out you can the market takes a 3 to 5% tumble. i would be stepping in and looking to buy there and be looking to buy stocks that have a significant dividend yield. i continue to see this as the cheapest part of the market. a lot of version you know, very good stories yielding are 5, 10. there's stocks out there that yield 15% that i think are definite buys here, given where the fixed income markets are. >> steve, did you say stocks are yielding as much as 15%? that would imply most likely

those are stocks that have seen their prices decline significantly, like a pitney bowes, for instance? i think a decade low in yesterday's session, maybe more and that stock yields 15% or so. >> right, i am referring to agency reads or hybrid reads, stocks like american capital that are financial intermediaries but deliver a 15, 17, sometimes 18% yield. i think that is a very cheap part of the market now for a lot of reasons ridiculous fear that people think the reach structure will be abandoned as part of the dakotas deal, i don't see that happening and i think value in the stocks. >> steve, we are going to leave it there, great to speak with you. when we come back, congressman and chief deputy whip, peter welch, joins us with the late on the fiscal cliff negotiations in washington. what are they thinking as go

into what could be a tumultuous couple of days. moderate strength after good data out of europe. more squawk on the street from post nine when we return. [ male announcer ] at scottrade, you won't just find us online, you'll also find us in person, with dedicated support teams at over 500 branches nationwide. so when you call or visit, you can ask for a name you know. because personal service starts with a real person. [ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dollar trades are just the start. our support teams are nearby, ready to help. it's no wonder so many investors are saying... [ all ] i'm with scottrade. mine was earned off vietnam in 1968. over the south pacific in 1943. i got mine in iraq, 2003. usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection, and because usaa's commitment to serve the military, veterans and their families

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ibler national longshoreman's association and the u.s. maritime alliance are going back to the negotiation table to in an attempt that could close 15 ports from massachusetts to texas. 4500 work lines, the east coast

could walk off the job on december 30th if no agreement was reached. the last time there was a strike like this was 1977 and did, by some estimates, cost $1 billion a day. this could have a huge impact. >> the president has some emergency powers that he could use. >> yes. >> to bring the two sides together, if he so chose, but we are talking boston, new york, new jersey, baltimore, charleston, miami, houston, i mean, these are -- >> these are big things here. what's interesting about it i just begun to understand a little bit about this port strikes the workers were getting royalty payments they first got 50 years ago when those big containers started coming over in u.s. ports that is the fight, should we get paid because the containers are coming in or should we not? really a fascinating historical artifact of the 1960s. you got to think that these royalties have to come down at some point or the other, especially because the expansion of the panama canal is going to increase the ability for ships to move to lots of other ports.

>> a lot of other issues as well because this is of course, a union issue. there for example the strength of the unions and at what point does it make the u.s. less competitive than some other port thought? what point do we need reform those structures to become more competitive and preserve the jobs? >> some trouble at northwestern ports, we just had the clerical workers in california. that was a near miss. something about labor disnews is the port. >> we try to move more energy outside of the u.s. to asia in particular, getting those contracts in place will be more important. but that is a ten year timeframe. not-so-good news for nokia, a month after the launching in the u.s., cell phones are offered at steep discounts or free on u.s. carriers or amazon. nokia is betting heavily on that phone which runs microsoft's windows 8 system.

it launched in november with at&t for $99. another version of the phone also available force 99 at verizon. some discussion, dennis, this is just how things work. >> i don't think that's how things work. if you buy an iphone 4s. this is not the most current model, iphone 4s, had verizon, tough pay $99. that is the outdated model. i encourage -- i don't know if people can tweet to the show, i would love to see photos of people actually using the nokia lumia. >> even for free, you mean? >> free or charged. >> would they use it for free? >> don't believe it is being used. >> on the subway, i count who's doing what. i've seen -- >> being very parochial. we live in new york city all three of us, we are on the subways in new york, not on the subways in asia where knowing yas and samsungs are much bigger players. >> fair enough. but? for the u.s. carriers. i have seen one nokia lumia on the subway the last three months. >> but here's what a nokia spokesperson had to say ultimate

slick, a car years decision on operation, up to at&t and verizon and so on and the spokesperson points out that samsung is doing the same thing. not just us. samsung is doing it, too. good response there. what stock should you be watching when the opening bell rings? get word on the street from a trader and on what to expect. that is next. later, commodities i hating snag the next few months what is ahead for the new year? we are making predictions. take another look at futures as we head into this thursday open. looks like we are a little bit higher, jobless claims did come in better than expected here. the dow looking at 18 at the open. more "squawk on the street," straight ahead. [ male announcer ] this december, remember -- you can stay in and like something... or you can get out there and actually like something. the lexus december to remember sales event is on. this is the pursuit of perfection. thwe asked total strangersmber to watch it for us.

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6 1/2 minutes before the opening bell rings on wall street. let's bring in steven. one of the lightest trading volume days of the year. we are also coming off of three straight sessions of losses for the s & p, the dow, as well as the nasdaq what do you anticipate today and going into friday as we are still awaiting any sort of progress on the fiscal cliff? >> well, we get europe back today, okay, so a little bit of volume a ton of japanese macro out tonight. you will have europe to asia, 24-hour trading today, real traders will be awake. the volume will still be light, a lot of guys aren't in. a mix there positive jobless claims prints with a positive continuing claims print. we have a little bit of support here, i think the market will open just below that 1422

resistance level. we will see report around 1416. then light until the later part of the day. >> we skate along until the later part of the day you expect trading volumes to be light in the united states? >> light in the u.s. unless the politicians actually start working, some are going to show up today and they do something. then they are going to start talking, trying to put out headlines, try to outdo each other, talk to guys like carl, gals like you and try to say, hey, look at me, i'm fixing everything, then you will see markets move a little bit. >> in terms of the volatileity, we have seen volatility remain extremely low. granted, we are in a holiday-short and week, therefore it is artificially depressed, higher than we are seeing it now, at 19 and change or so. what do you account for the complacency in the market, remained in the market most of the month of december, as we are nearing the deadline? >> you have two competing things, guys who made money and

don't want to risk it and guys that missed the move and are frustrated they are not going to get n the retail investor is not really participating, a lot of the funds respect playing right now either, they will wait until next week. >> i know a lot of hedge funds officially close third books, not trading, they are off until the new year. >> if you had a bonus, if you really have a bonus now you you're not going to play with that. >> too late to dress up the month to dress up the year? >> unless you throw a hail mary pass, a guy out there who is desperate, he will play roger staubach. >> retailers are shaky, saw weakness in the transports, they go hand in hand, this time of year, oil bounced. that is working against transports as well so there are moving parts and do you have to do your homework, we can't do it for you. >> stephen, good to see you. >> thank you.

a winter storm is dumping snow, ice and lots of travel problem notice northeast ths in week. and which retailers were the winners this holiday season and which ones did come up short? the opening sbael little less than four minutes away. re a bus.

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from td ameritrade. gee you are watching cnbc's "squawk on the street," live from the financial capital on the world. the opening bell set to ring on that balcony in a couple minutes there the big board, west virginia university and syracuse university, the football teams playing in the new era pinstripe bowl at yankee stadium this saturday. i know melissa is going p. >> for sure. we are carpooling, right, carl? >> at the nasdaq, iraq and afghanistan, veterans of

america, a non-profit organization with more than 200,000 members. great to see them today as well. a lot of charity this morning, even on the general news morning shows about facebook. if you haven't heard already, randi zuckerberg posted a pitch of her family, thought it was private, somebody saw it on their feed, put it on twitter, she responded angrily saying it was way uncool and beyond human decency and it has raised, once again this argument, debate about privacy settings and whether or not you should trust social media in general, dennis. >> a big lead-in there such a powerful medium. seeing it, of course, by this very example. right now, people, they don't feel comforcomfortable. but compelled to do it any watch behavior, as much as people talk about they don't like it, people use it putting more and more information online via social networks. i think there's a strange dichotomy about what we think we

want and what we actually do. for most people, they don't square but doesn't matter. >> all would be academic if the model of the company wasn't based on friends and scale and that leading to different ways to search, right? different twice provide advertising you. >> different ways to sell. you have to think that facebook will continue to get better at what it does and twitter will continue to get better what it does in monetizing those things it has to extract as much information as it can from the users for those purposes and the business requires that it do so. i don't think we can expect any big changes. >> slight downward bias in the markets at the open. bank of america out of the gates, a very strong outperformer against its peers, hitting a fresh 52-week high in today's session, a few minutes old. bac is higher by .9. we have seen seen a string of new highs of bank of america, a stock, the best performer on the dow jones. best performer on -- >> the dow. yes, ma'am the top per on the dow >>. >> a double.

a double for the year. so bank of america, nicely higher in today's session. we are also seeing some big gains for smith & wesson. swhc is the ticker on this of course, troubles surrounding the newtown, connecticut, shooting a lot of sellers on that stock during that period of time, today, issuing another $15 billion, expand its buy back program which it just announced with its fiscal second quarter results, announced 20 million share -- $20 million worth of buy backs and expand that to 15. nice gain on the shares. >> >> a big winner for the year. look at that chart. >> all handgunmakers, talking about this before, how ironic you can the obama administration was seen strict irbefore the elections and hand brought forward the dematte manned that might have been in the future, people wanted to bite hand guns. >> always the case. any time the debate over gun control flares up.

>> does the framework of the "wall street journal" piece tell us anything new about best buy, sears? >> for sears, we have seen them cut costs, cut costs, sears and the kmart stores. it seems that this year the reckoning, the kmart operation, people have lost track of that if you send people inside kmart today, i think you basically find a relatively horrifying situation for the average consumer. i mean, really bad stores that haven't been given the proper maintenance budgets that they deserve. for -- is it life or death? no h i think for the kmart part of it, there will be some sort of reckoning. i say life or death maybe moves more into that category for radioshack that stock has just been getting pummeled. tried to adapt themselves as

mobile phone retailer and margins getting killed in kind. so i think this year is sort of that moment, someone come in and do an lbo, equity infusion, some sort of outside play per might not expect who wants a retail presence? people talked about amazon get nothing retail, maybe not with radioshack, some point out other. jc penney, you know so well, covered it on cnbc, ron johnson and great magical vision for this company. so far, it has failed. again, it is make or break for mr. johnson. >> even with some optimistic analysts there who see signs of success this that have nothing to do with the original plan. >> a chart in our story, carl that shows the dropoff of jc penney stock -- i'm sorry, jc penney sales. they have lost 30 to 40% of their entire sales. that is very hard to do. >> take a look at some of the japanese exporters, talking about that in the cop text of going short the end, going long

japanese stocks. an area to watch. overnight, expecting out of japan cpi data, expected to further the case for bank of japan to embark on more stimulus, bad news equals good news for japan what traders are bracing for overnight i at least on the japan trade. in terms of retailers, sears holdings is up a percent in today's session, the other three are doing pretty poorly. pretty poorly in today's session. it does look like we are extending our three-day losing streak we saw across the three major averages in today's session. >> most excited about seaworld. >> seaworld filing for an ipo >> $100 million ipo, talking about who should ring the bell that day. >> shamu. >> a tank on that balcony? >> you heard about the aquarium in the shanghai shopping mall that just collapsed? >> no. >> they had sharks in this tank and spontaneously collapsehood,

glass shattered in all, sharks in there. >> we know how well parks have done for comcast, for disney this year. not surprising that blackstone would want to hop on that. >> cedar fair done well. >> fun. >> ticker would be scas, by the way. >> for seaworld? >> yes. yes. yes. check with mary thompson in for bob pisani this morning. hey, mary. >> we note mixed market the dow up 7 1/2 points, continued weakness in the s & p as well as the nasdaq today, lower by semiconductors, strength in the energy sector around drug stocks in early trade. that is helping to support the dow. a number of traders say the market continues to hold up pretty well, given that there are, of course, fewer expectation wers going to reach, a grand bargain on avoiding the fiscal cliff. look at the s & p, we did have melissa mentioning this earlier, down three days in a role one

strategist pointing out technically looks vulnerable, the 15-day moving average above the 200 day. if it breaks below that, we could see selling pressure heading to the end of the year. the vix which popped up earlier, this is a measure of fear on wall street. i bring this up, while we are at the highest levels in six months on the vix, well below half of where we were back in august of 2011, the debt crisis. that kind of suggests again a complacency in the market as we approach the fiscal cliff. one area you are seeing, i guess concerns about this is in the u.s. dollar, approaching an eighth month low against the euro in yesterday's trade. again, concerns about the u.s. going over the cliff putting pressure on the dollar. as you can see, the dollar is extending those gain us in today's trade. speaking of the eurozone, finishing out a -- what has been a very volatile year, these indices are either at or very close to 52-week highs, the

german finance minister said today the worst of the european crisis appears to be over but a lot of people still expected to have an impact on global growth in 2013. south korea lowering estimates for 2013, its economic estimates, in large part, because of the weakness or expected continued weakness in the european market he is. home builders, the best performing subsector of the groups we follow here at the new york stock exchange for the year. over course, heading into this year, the first time we have seen a year-over-year increase in prices for homes here in the u.s. since 2006. and of course, all over this comes ahead of the new home sales dat la which will be released in just about 22 minutes. once again, we have a mixed picture, only the nasdaq is weaker. guys, ba to you. >> thanks, mary thompson. a check on nasdaq trading. seema mody there >> slightly lower on the day for

nasdaq, waiting for a fiscal cliff negotiations in washington. marvel seeking to overturn a jury's patent infringement findings, you can see the stock continuing to move to the downside u stocks moving on the back of a holiday e-retail satisfaction index, a survey compiling -- a servais compiled between thanksgiving and christmas. amazon on top of the online shopping satisfaction survey you eighth consecutive year, however, customer satisfaction with apple's online store slipping three points this year, apple's lowest score in four years. speak of am, mobile wars heating up, nokia in the news. according to "wall street journal," the lumia phones sold at a discount or pro-sfrird free at some mobile carriers, seeing the stock lower on the day. look at research in motion after the being the best performing stock on the nasdaq 100 yesterday. carl?

>> seem marks thank you very much for that seema mody at the nasdaq. shift to bonds and the dollar, rick santelli at the cme in chicago. i did not see your hit on "squawk" but it became legendary on twitter. what happened? >> sometimes you reach the end of the kabuki dance limit. i personally, you know, the compromise issue has to have some meat on t compromise on some substance. what this has deteriorated to is just a shame. i guess enough said. yes, i blew a gasket what can you do? i love my country. i was wrong. i said we had $100 trillion underfunded liability, i was off by 22 trillion. we need to get more serious than this vacationing back and forth put something together quick, tim geithner throwing in the debt ceiling limit. kabuki theater might have been good for most of the last 237 years, okay, but it isn't any

good anymore. we really need to get serious. now to the markets. if you look at year-to-date chart, these are very interesting. year-to-date of our ten-year, we're the 175 down a couple on the day but on the year, we are exactly down a dozen basis points, the bound is down close to 50, okay? closer to 50, i think 46 or 47 basis points, to be exact. we want to continue to monitor that spread, giving a glimpse into how the fixed income markets are handicapping future economic growth, in part in my opinion. we look at the following chart, the euro versus the dollar, yes, at fresh eight-month highs but the real trade, melissa lee accurately pointing to all morning is the yen and very informed. as you look at an interday chart of the yen, you can see a wester can from trading 86 handle. if you open the chart up, we are at fresh 29-month highs because the last time we traded at 86 handle is where the current comp is, that was on august 12, 2010.

carl, back to you. >> rick thanks so much for that come back to you later. rick san tell any chicago. the latest moves in energy and metals a lot going on there you can tell from yesterday's price action. bertha coombs at the nymex. bertha? [ no audio ] >> she looks good but we need to hear her, too. >> can't read her lips? mining. yeah. we will fix that. meantime, still ahead, the ceo of kim co- realty ounce 900 retail shopping centers his take on holiday shopping and what is ahead in the new year? looking at early movers on this thursday on wall street, as we head to break. you won't take my life. you won't take our future. aids affects us all. even babies.

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we talked a lot about the netflix outage of christmas eve yesterday. if you live in the new york area there is an outage caution an uproar. online growers fresh direct went dark tuesday and wednesday because the renewer did not renew its website domain address. network solution says it notified the long island-based company in early november and the typical renewal costs 3799 annually. the issue has since been fixed and the dedoe main renewed until 2024, but for people in the new york area who are so reliant on things being delivered right to your doorstep, like you, dennis, maybe. >> for sure. 3799, all it takes. you got to do it. to does bring into review some of the just in time world we live in. that gets to the ports issue, too. we have -- our supply chain so tightly wound, one little hink in that it goes down, it be growsies to your door or big goods across the ocean. >> netflix blames amazon web services for its outage on

christmas eve, fresh direct has a different kind of problem but you i wonder, seeds of distrust down the road i do want to rely on somebody else far away -- >> amazon and netflix, mortal competitors. >> curious, absolutely curious, relying on competitors to deliver your product and you're paying them at the same time. imagine clirks there is an outage. frenemy. >> now we will go to bertha combs, see if we can hear her. >> as the come mers goes, can you hear me now nymex at 91 a barrel, despite the fact that some trickers think that yesterday's rally was a bit overdone. we are at two-month highs for nymex crude. got a mixed picture as far as the rest of the oil products are concerned. heating oil today continuing to be strong with of course you can the cold weather and the storm here in the northeast. in facts, weather service international, its longer term

outlook for weather the next two, three months, northeast and northern climates expected to be below average temperatures through february. above average temperatures in the south in particular, time to look up friends in tucson, visit mom in arizona. nat gas options expire today, that could be a little bit of volatility there as far as the metals are concerned, despite the weaker dollar, we still have gold here under pressure but seeing a little bit of relief and moving higher when it comes to copper and silver extending their gains from yesterday with some good numbers on industrial profits coming out of china. back over to you guys. >> thanks so much, bertha coombs. still ahead exchief deputy whip and democratic congressman from vermont, peter welch, will joins live with his take on the chances of getting a deal done on the fiscal cliff some time in the next four days and 14 hours. that's coming up at 11 a.m. "squawk on the street" will be right back. [ male announcer ] this december, remember --

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second day in a row retailers led the losers list. simon who can is here with what is coming up at 10. >> we will talk about where the markets are going to go from here, fiscal cliff, positioning for 2013 and kim co-on the program, one of the biggest owners of american malls. how are they faring as america spikes again? apple, a four-year low, they are experime experiments, carl, as you mentioned with curved glass. >> simon, looking forward to see you. chicago drive mayors ring in the new year with reluctant, starting in january, they will be shelling out more for downtown parking meters than drivers in any other city across the country. the cost to park at a metered spot will rise to $6.50 a hour, double what drivers paid in 2008. so that brink to us this morning's squawk. complete the sentence for 6.50 a near the an hour to park at a meter the spot, it better be able to blank. very creative audience and a cheeky audience at that.

>> i thought manhattan was bad. >> welcome to the future. city budge let's constrained and city got to raise money and the state of i will sill in quite a parlance state itself. >> got to get the revenues from some state, guy he is. talk about the weather here, the winter storm working across much of the nation, still causing headaches in the northeast, expected to dump one to two feet of snow in some parts of maine and surrounding states today. the weather channel's eric fisher is live in lewis ton, maine, with the latest. hi, eric. >> good morning, melissa. hi there, every ebb. snow coming down a few hours ago, now ernest across maine that will continue all day long, many states touched by this winter storm, maine will be the last one in the lower 48 this all started back in west texas, a white christmas in amarillo and lubbock, folks doing shoveling here this holiday week, notice the visibility starting to go down, traffic has been light, all of the state offices are close here in maine for today. across all of this state, vermont, new hampshire, new

york, dealing with the wintery weather. if you are a traveler, certainly not any good news to report here. boston, major hub, more rain you not dealing with a loft snow there but some flight delay, if you are on the roads, a difficult go, christmas on a tuesday, a lot of folks trying to get back to work for the end of the week, that hasn't been possible in a lot of cases, hundreds hundreds of flights canceled. speaking to the breadth of how widespread the storm s tonight, things will finally exit the region, the snow will taper down. look at this statistic, 65% of the country right now has snow cover on the ground. there's only about 13% at the start of the month and 24% of the country this time last year. after a long period of warm weather, all we are talking about are record highs and a lack of snow, winter has certainly shown up with a vengeance and we felt it here, especially traveling across the country this week. melissa, back to you. >> eric, thank you, eric fisher joining us from lewis ton, maine. keeping an eye on retail today, obviously, interesting, some of the readers, ralph

lauren, coach, vf, nike, the big losers this morning are radioshack and so forth but deckers up 7%. people looking for reasons why the one thing we found that ex-peer yin, which tracks a lot of data, found that uggs the number one searched term online and it beat ipads, beat kindle fires. >> shocking. >> strange result in that kind of move a day later though. >> a few years ago, seemed that uggs might have been a fad. they have somehow been able to convert this product into something more of a classic item that stand the test of time. >> if luke at the longer term chart on deckers, not a good looking chart. the channel is downward sloping and also the short interest is pretty high in the stock, about 42% of shares outstanding are short. so, this could be a short covering rally, too on the back of this new data. >> speaking of shorts, what happens with herbalife in the next week is going to be so

interesting. for people who sell herbalife it is a system of belief and interesting to see how they counterattack bill ackman in the weeks ahead it is coming. >> yes. no. we are all hoping that activism has a long shelf life in 2013 because it has made fodder for a lot of news, especially the last couple of weeks. dennis, thanks for coming n >> appreciate t >> dennis berman of the "wall street journal.." japanese yen a stellar runt last few mount, find out how the fiscal cliff in the u.s. could derail all of zwloochlt first, we will head live to washington where congress is returning to work after their christmas holiday. any hope of getting a fiscal cliff deal done in time? we are back after a quick break. and i'm here to tell homeowners that are 62 and older about a great way to live a better retirement. it's called a reverse mortgage. [ male announcer ] call right now to receive your free dvd and booklet with no obligation. it answers questions like how a reverse mortgage works, how much you qualify for, the ways to receive your money,

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and still pay the mid-size price. now this...will work. [ male announcer ] just like you, business pro. just like you. go national. go like a pro. welcome back to "squawk on the street." in about 15 sends, we are going to get our last consumer confidence number of the year. remember, coming off of levels we haven't seen in four years and ten months, february of '08. we are also going to be getting the second-to-last read of the home sales. consumer confidence, 65.1. that is a far cry from the expectation of 70 and our last

read at 73.7, as i have pointed out, the best read since february of '08, has been downgraded to 71.5. new home sales for november, 377,000. of course, that's seasonal and annualized. and that is roughly close to expectations. our last look at 368 lost 7,000 on the recision so that puts it at 361, which makes this number up in round terms about 4 1/2%. when was the last time we saw 377,000? well, here, let me cipher it through, it has been a while, we haven't seen 377,000 since april of 2010. april of 2010. so, not a bad number and it nights the puzzle that housing may have seen its darkest days in the rear view mir, everybody in the foreign exchange market has a cross trade that seems to

have a short kbren component against the dollar, the dollar finally crossed 86 handle, the first time since the second week of august 2010. back to you. >> see how the market responds to those two numbers. thanks so much. the mean time, the road map for the next hour, show what it could cost you personally if go over the fiscal cliff and how you might be able to hedge against it, at least investment-wise. then find out how this holiday sea a sense dismal retail results might impact north america's largest operator of shopping centers. plus, how the falling yen could affect u.s. multinationals a lot of twice go with that story this morning. president obama is returning to washington today with the fiscal cliff deadline looming. cnbca's eamon javers has more. >> not a lot to give consumers a whole lot more confidence a deal is going to get done. yes, the president returning early from his hawaii vie cation today. at the top of this hour, expecting any minute on the senate floor that harry reid

might come and give us some comment and guidance here on where to expect fiscal cliff talks to go over the next 48 hours or so. we know that the house of representatives will not be in session today but speaker bain he or she conferencing in his colleagues on a phone call this afternoon, all that up against a monday deadline. now we are told by game leadership that they will advise their numbers by saturday if they are going to bring them back into washington for a vote on anything on monday if there is a deal. there you see the united states senate is coming into session is this morning. we are going to keep an eye out for those remarks from senator reid, and of course, remarks on this fiscal cliff debacle have been moving the markets throughout the past couple of weeks, wait and see what harry reid has to say. guys, not a whole lot here to give those guys consumer confidence. >> the essence of poll takes what what we are seeing now this is no surprise, push comes to shove, at this stage, doesn't the commander in chief, just won

his last election, not beholden to so many, has to step forward and offer a path out of it? that surely now his job? >> right. a very interesting point. but what i would say back to you on that the commander in chief here is in a position he has to offer something he doesn't agree with as a path out if he wants to compromise with speaker boehner. >> eamon, that is the nature of politics, competing demands for economic resource and competing visions. at the end to of the day, you have to do a deal. wait and do it after the fiscal cliff or you can do it now. >> what we may be about to see here, simon, at the end of the day, down the have to do a deal. what's going to happen, we will see taxes go up and spending go down in washington and there are a lot of people near this town who feel like they can live with that and better than the alternative. >> eamon, as you are talking, majority leader reid is speaking on the senate floor. let's take a listen. >> i can't imagine their consciences, they are out

wherever they are around the country, and we are here trying to get something done. they are not in washington, d.c. the house of representatives are not here. they couldn't even get the leadership together yesterday. they had to do it with a teleconference. republican leadership. we go over the cliff, we will be left with the knowledge that could have been prevented with a single vote and the republican-controlled house of representatives. speaker, prior to this session starting today, the presiding officer and i had a conversation about how things have changed around here. i served in the house of representatives. there's 435 members of the house. what goes on in this country shouldn't be decided by the majority. it should be decided by the whole house of representatives. everyone knows, including the speaker of the house house of representatives today, that if they had brought the house --

i'm sorry, the senate-passed bill that would give relief to everyone making less than $250,000 a year, it would pass overwhelmingly. every democratic would vote for it and republicans would vote for it. but the speaker, he says no, we can't do that t has to be a majority of the majority. so they have -- they have done nothing. he even tried to bring up the bill last week to show they could defeat it. they couldn't do that either. they couldn't defeat the bill that passed here in the senate. the american people, i don't think understand, the house of representatives is operating without the house of representatives. it's being operated with a dictatorship of the speaker not allowing the vast majority of the house of representatives to get what they want. iffed 250 would be brought up, it would pass overwhelmingly, i repeat.

any given day the past six months, since july 25th, speaker boehner could have the middle class tax cut legislation to vote in the house and it would pass. but he is doing -- made the decision he is not going to let a vote on that because if he let it be voted upon it would pass. i have said here, mr. president, it is not too late for the speaker to take up the senate-passed bill but that time is even winding down. today is thursday. he is going to give 48 hours' notice to the house before they come back. so, 48 hours from today is saturday. with just that one vote, middle class families would have the secure that their taxes wouldn't go up by at least $2200 on new year's day. that's the average. some would go up more, some less, of course. speaker boehner should call members to of the house back to washington today. he shouldn't have let them go,

in fact. they're not here. they're not here. john boehner seems to care more about keeping his speakership than keeping the nation on firm financial footing it is obvious, mr. president, what is going on around here. he is waiting to january 3rd to get re-elected as speaker before he gets serious with negotiations because he has so many people over there that won't follow what he wants, that's obvious from the debacle that takes place last week and it was a debacle. he made an offer to the president. the president came back, they are just a little bit ap he walked away from that and went to plan b. but -- which all you did is whack people who need help the most. poor people. and he couldn't even pass that.

remember, he is not letting the house of representatives vote, he is letting the republicans vote. it was so bad, he was in such difficult shape there he wouldn't even allow a vote to take with his republicans because he knew he would lose. for months, he has allowhood house republicans to hold middle class taxpayers hostage to protect the richest 2% and the funny part about that, mr. president, the 2% don't want to be protected. the majority of rich people in this -- on our great country are willing to pay more. the only people who disagree with that are republicans who work in this building. the speaker just has a few days left to change his mind but i have to be very honest, mr. president. i don't know time-wise how it can happen now. everyone knows we can't bring up anything here unless we do it by

unanimous consent because the rules have been so worked the last few years, we can't do anything without 60 votes. there's 53 of us. after the first of the year, there will be 55 of us. i would hope the pandering is the republican leader here in the senate could come together and find a way to work. let's find out what that could be. the speaker can't parks seems much of anything over there. on the sunday shows, they had republican senators and they were on the fox network, pretty conservative and that's probably a gross understatement, would

you filibuster a bill that -- the president's bill? they refused to answer. well, we don't make that decision. we can't answer that well, filibuster is over all of our heads, mr. president. that's why we have to look seriously next year at changing the rules around here. the bill that has passed the house -- i'm sorry, the bill that has passed the senate protects 98% of families, 97% of small businesses. they passed a bill in the house that we defeated that is extend the tax cuts for everybody, that was voted down over here. th the president said woe veto it. so, this happy talk that this republican house leadership said yesterday, let them take our bill. mr. president, that bill was brought up and it was defeated. i raise pete, the american people do not agree with the

republicans in the house and the republicans over here. >> that is majority leader speaker harry reid on the senate floor reflecting a fair amount of blame, of course. he had been seen or has been seen as one of the men who can put together some kind of bipartisan deal that can then be taken up by the house. appare apparently, eamon javers, does not seem that that is going to happen, he says it looks like that's where we are headed in terms of going over the fiscal cliff, boehner, phone he did offer something, probably couldn't pass it. >> yeah, that's right, carl. harry reid used to be an amateur boxer and he is soft spoken but you can see him taking a couple of tough jab there is at speaker boehner, sake the house of representatives is being run by a dictatorship of the speaker and saying it's the speaker's fault for wasting a week last week on this plan b option that didn't materialize. but now all eyes are on the senate and harry reid and he is

doing some finger pointing here but there is some expectation here that the senate will have to pass something in order to get a deal done. in fact, when you talk too republican leaders in the house, they say they have basically abdicated this thing, got to have the senate take the lead here at this point. so harry reid is feeling the same kind of pressure that john boehner was feeling just a week ago to get a deal done before new year's eve. very, very tricky. you heard, carl, reid saying there he doesn't know if he can do this time-wise because of the filibuster. republicans have not agreed plot to filibuster, hold off on filibustering any potential deal if they don't like what's in the offing there. there's a lot of moving parts and reid is definitely feeling the pressure. >> eamon what is remarkably frustrating you from an outside person's perspective, everybody is blaming the other person for not acting. we need the senate to act. we need the house to act. we need senator mcconnell to come to us to come with a package of what can be passed. what is the ultimate game plan, do you think, by deflecting the

responsibility, essentially, for getting a deal done? >> what has been the case all along continues to be the case now, which is if there's any hope of a deal here, all the parties, all of them have to stand on the edge of this cliff, hold hands and jump off all together. that's the only way we will navigate this thing safely. what's happening now is that everybody is walk up to the edge individually and looking over and saying i don't want to do that i can't bring myself is to cast that vote. if they can all hold hands and do this together and avoid blaming each other then they can get a deal but it seems clear that what we are seeing in public now a reflection of behind-the-scenes negotiations that have broken down or at least hit some very serious impasse and we will not get a deal possibly by new year's eve and might have to deal with something after january and of course, after the election for the house speakership, which is coming up on january 3rd. >> alternatively, eamon this could be the sort of brinkmannship you might expect. i will give you three facts as

to why we might be hopeful. very deliberate act. geithner says we will reach the debt screaming on monday. why deciding to put that on the table? obama returning from holiday early? is he a man that this is irrelevant? and the market has a bit [ inaudible ] >> couldinged market is not reading this right, could be the president is coming back for strictly symbolic purposes and don't, in fact, get a deal going into new year's eve. we just don't know at this point. and there's a lot riding on this, on advice yowly, that we can't see from here how we are going to get this deal by monday, what's going to be required is these guys are going to have to come to a deal behind closed doors and announce it publicly, it is going to have to survive the vetting it gets publicly and then it's going to

have the votes in both the house and the senate, which are very different bodies, one controlled by republican, the other controlled by democrats and that's going to be a very dicy thing to do but it's going to be a moment of high drama if we get a between now and monday. >> his point about proceed yours is a good one. the president spoke to the business roundtable the other day as you recall, eamon, even if you got the framework done it would take a week to get all the things onto paper. clearly, we don't have a week anymore. continue to watch for developments out of d.c. thank you for your help. we will see you in a bit. bring in jonathan goal lurks chief equity strategist for ubsa key moment to have you. thanks for being with us. >> morning. >> what do you make of the near-term argument that simon makes the market is not reacting violently to a lack of -- a lack of a headline, you do point to the vix as some evidence it is a little nervous, right? >> yeah. i mean, if luke ook at what thek it's done since the middle of

november, up 5 importance. advance ready 7% because the market thought that you had a done deal. it has only pulled back by 2%. so the market basically is saying either we are gonna get a deal right now or if we get one in the very beginning of the year, no big deal. i think the market has this one wrong, why you are seeing the vix spike. some of the smart money is beginning to hedge the downside. this is an asymmetric outcome o thing goes well, get the 2% you gave up in the last three sessions. if things go badly, the market goes down a lot more. >> yeah. longer term. you're not that bullish about 2013 either, 1425 year-end target? >> we have, i believe, the most cautious market target which is basically the market flat over the next 12 months. the reason is we think even if you get a deal, you didn't solve this thing. you got to patch. that means we haven't addressed long-term tax issues, not addressing really long-term entitlement and spending issues

and those are going to have to be negotiated in 2013 even if you get a deal. and we think that is going to keep businesses very cautious. it is going to keep them from spending. and you already sought caw the r confidence numbers take a hit. even if you get a deal it isn't over on 12/31. >> jonathan, i want to go to a point you made earlier that is an important one that is the asymmetric risk in the market there is more risk, in your view, to the downside by not reaching a deal than the upside should we reach a deal because you think the market has priced in essentially the fact we are getting a deem? >> if you were to ask most remember ises what two tell you, even if you don't get a deal on 12/\31 you will get it a week later two weeks later, all practical purposes, no one believes you are going to take the 3 1/2 to 4% hit to gdp the cliff actually represents. i think that may be a little bit

naive perhaps in that if you have this thing drag on longer, business and consumer confidence eroding can really have a big impact on the mark sets in. >> that is a tail risk. we should be clear in terms of maintaining confidence on the markets, the 31st may be irrelevant if, in advance of that the president and the opposition very clearly lay out the steps that will be taken, legislative time permitting, you could put a road map in front of this market that solves the current impasse and it will probably believe it. >> i totally agree. if there is an agreement in form or if there's a general coming together on this, even if you don't officially solve this problem, you know, because it needs to go through the -- you know, washington procedures, the market's going to basically buy into that. the question is what's the upside? the market had already run 7%, the pull back is only 2%. i just don't see the market really taking off. i think the good news is already in the mark let, why the issue

of asymmetric downside is important. >> good stuff, good insight, appreciate that very much, jonathan goal lum from ubs. straight ahead on the program, kim co-real right operates the largest portfolio of shopping malls and the ceo will join us after the break to talk about the state of retail now and where the consumer might be tend of the week. stay with us. and his new boss told him two things -- cook what you love, and save your money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and game from the great northwest. he'll start investing early, he'll find some good people to help guide him, and he'll set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. it's just common sense. excuse me, sir i'm gonna have to ask you to power down your little word game. i think your friends will understand. oh no, it's actually my geico app...see?

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continuing to decline in december amid disappointing holiday sales figures, certainly the ones we got yesterday to give us a pulse of the consumer want to check in with the head of kimco realty, own and operate america's largest portfolio of community shopping centers. david henry is the ceo and vice chairman. good morning to you, sir. thank you for joining us on cnbc. >> thank you, sigh mound. >> how much visibility do you have as to what is happening with the consumer now because people are worried they might be just coming in a little bit u what are you able to tell us from your snapshot across the country? >> well, it's important to remember that the final numbers aren't in yet. this final week of december historically is a very important week, up to 15% of holiday sales can come through this final week. but it is fair to say that he is there a been lots of cro crosscurrents that make it difficult to see what the final number will be. on the good side you can odd strong back-to-school season, odd strong thanksgiving, you had

good traffic at most of the properties, you had a wonderful shopping day in terms of saturday being right before christmas this year. you had two extra shopping days this year. that's very different than historically. on the bad side, you have the fiscal cliff, which is very real. you have sandy. the weather hasn't been cooperating. so, there's some real consumer downturn as well. >> and what are you able to tell us about the decisions that your clients are making with you? you are trading leases all the time, presumably, all the big, high-street names. is there optimism? what are the leases you are signing at the moment, higher than lower than perhaps we had six months or a year ago? >> the national retailers continue to be very optimistic about the next couple of years. we are in a recovery, not with sa standing that the fiscal cliff. i think most of the national retailers continue to be optimistic about where they are going the next couple of years.

lots of leases are being signed. store counts are being expanded. the retailers, in general, have stronger balance sheets and they are ready to grow again. hopefully, this will be just a temporary pause in terms of the fiscal situation. >> hey, david, i'm curious you when we are sitting here and just after the christmas holiday, what data point do you look to give you a better read on how retail sales actually work for the holiday shopping period? we got, for instance, master card spending pulse data yesterday which indicated decline forth entire period. the nrf still predicting a 4.1% increase for holiday shopping and this morning, we get shopper track, which is sales and foot traffic declined in the week leading up to christmas, like a barrage of different data points. so when you're sitting in your office, which one do you go to? >> we go to two. the final sales, if they are somewhere in between 2 to 4%, i think that's fine. if they come in lower than 2%, that definitely qualifies as very soft. but the best data point we have

is how the retailers themselves feel about the coming year. so far, they still feel optimistic, still committed to their growth plans. >> so overall number in terms of the 2 to 4%, anything less than that start getting concern about the health of some of your tenants? >> not really. there's whole segments that are growing. what we do see is continued strength in the discounters, the marshall's of the world, the ross stores, the t.j. maxx. they are doing just fine. the middle and perhaps the high end is feeling some pressure today. >> good see you, sir, happy holidays, thank you for joining us. david henry, ceo. we were flat maybe six or seven minutes ago, quickly lost 90 points, do you new down 78 on the dow. s & p broken below the 50-day moving average, of course, after senator reid says it looks like where we're headed, his words, of course, referring to the fiscal cliff.

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pizza continues to be hot. welcome back, i'm brian sullivan, the market flash. dpz, domino's pizza, another all-time high for this name, oppenheimer out making positive comments on domino's pizza saying they see eps expansion through higher sales both here and abroad. we know the international story has been very strong as well. they like some of the technological and productivity innovations of dp. >> and raising their price target, domino's pizza continues its nice run that stock up more than 1%. back to you, simon. meanwhile, of course a major storm hitting the east coast and affecting travel across the region. we will update own the storm's latest track after the break. and still ahead hurricane the dollar has had a phenomenal run against the yen over the last three months. cot fiscal cliff derail the green back's rally? we are back in two. when you have diabetes... your doctor will say get smart about your weight. that's why there's glucerna hunger smart shakes.

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we heard from harry reid that a fiscal cliff deal seems unlikely although game theorists say this is how it is supposed to go, down in the last hour. s & p down ten as well. another major story, yen

falling to its lowest level against the dollar nor than two years on expectations that japan's prime minister will push for a weakening of the kur rehn. that is means the yen could have a major impact on some multinational companies listed here at the new york exchange. wolf gain coaster is chairman, ceo and chief currency strategist at fire apps yes advises globe global companies like google, yahoo! accenture and haliburton how to manage their risk. thank you for joining us on the program. >> good morning, how are you? >> mellon is warning today that what happens to the yen now will be the focus for many in the market for the first quarter of the year. clearly, you have a prime minister coming to japan absolutely determined that with the bank of japan, they will prevent deflation. can you explain to people sitting home now what that means practice and what that means for american multinationals? >> absolutely. what we have is we are in a currency war where a lot of

countries are trying to weaken their currency and therefore,er in a race to weaken their currency. >> wolfgang, forgive me for interrupting you, we have breaking news on the fiscal cliff we need to go to washington. eamon? >> we know now that the president has spoken to all four leaders, according to some wire reports that we are getting, the president called all of the congressional leaders, democrat and republican and what the white house is telling me, i just want to read you this statement now from the white house that i just got. late yesterday from hawaii, the president made separate calls to leader reid, speaker boehner, leader mcconnell and leader pelosi to receive an update on the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations. that's all the information that we have. we don't know what those leaders spoke about with the president during those call bus i would say just parsing the words here a little bit of this statement, to receive an update does not sound like the president was somehow calling them to issue an new offer or to force some kind of a deal to a head. it sounds like he was checking

in with those leaders to find out what's going on or what might be possible at this point. we are working on getting you more information on exactly what was said on those calls just yesterday from hawaii, guys. >> eamon, thank you for keeping us up to date, the view from d.c. let's just return to the discussion we were having with wolfgang coaster about what's happening with dollar yen and this huge move over three months, whether the dollar has accelerated, 11, 12% against the yen. wolfgang what does that mean for people sitting at home? >> the japanese are trying to get their products to be more comp pet it was than the u.s. product. there is a race to weaken their general currency which is good for companies produce and ex-sporting what happened they are trying to achieve. the japanese have been in the stronger currency trying to fight off, staying above 80, dip down to 75, now at 85, this is

good for the japanese but not good for the americans. so in general what you have is globally, lots of countries, brazil, even the europeans, everybody is really racing for a weaker currency to have products more competitive. >> looks like the fed isn't doing such a good job, it is racing to weaken the dollar. ? a huge move, the japanese are winnin winning. >> see what happens on the fiscal cliff, if you have indecisive action out of washington, don't have a strategy in place at least, if not an answer, you are going to see weakening and all of a sudden that is going to turn the other way and you will see the dollar coming up. the issue for corporation, that is what we focus on, is really make sure that you actually become currency agnostic, this volatility is all over the place. that is not good for corporations. >> from the ceos you talk to on a regular basis, where would you raise the red flags what are the companies that investors need to take a second look at and check

the -- you know, still going to get the margin growth? >> you have to look at companies prepared to actually manage this risk aappropriate aly and become currency agnostic. if you are in the pharmaceuticals, pfizer probably more prepared than a bristle my hers squibbs and the fleers are probably more in there than the l 3s. so when you're an investor, looking looking at companies not as impacted, they manage that risk, globally, they all have the risk, now the question, who manages it better? >> the corollary, you have to look at where the company does business, correct? if they have almost no exposure to january, perhaps less of an impact on them than for a company that derives a major portion of revenue from the japanese market. >> that's correct. what you're seeing, companies 500 million billion and above are typically doing business in 30, 40 countries and if you look at all the currency pairs and the interaction thereof, you

could be talking hundred or more currency pairs. so, actually, it isn't all about just dollar yen. yes, you have companies like a ralph lauren or a tiffany's more impacted by a dollar yen than maybe a bristol-myers squibb's is but more than just a dollar yen story, you have to look at eurodollar, right now it is about the dollar yep having impacts and see this in the earnings season starting middle to late january, you see impacts. the dollar yen stays here the companies i just mention already not be happy. >> good to see you, sir. thank you for ex-blaming that wolfgang koester joining us there on a huge move on the yen. happy holidays. as we are watching the u.s. markets here, close to session lows at this point, we saw a spike in the volatility index, above 20 the first time in five months. this is a 4 1/2% spike.

we will help you protect your money, privacy and more. first, the final score between the winning and losing retailers this holiday season and what kind of deficit the losers are facial as we go into the new year. "squawk on the street" is back in a minute. [ male announcer ] feeling like a shadow of your former self? c'mon, michael! get in the game! [ male announcer ] don't have the hops for hoops with your buddies? lost your appetite for romance? and your mood is on its way down. you might not just be getting older. you might have a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. millions of men, forty-five or older, may have low t. so talk to your doctor about low t. hey, michael!

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rush of the holiday shopping season is officially wrapping up. were sales better than expected? we know the answer to that we think and did weather affect our group? our jane wells has done more than her share of shopping this season and join us with the

score. >> thwe always blame the weathe but this year, we can really blame the weather t is toer by store and company by company. one company look at sales using government data and a team of a dozen people that go to 50 ven news. according to his research who are the holiday winners? at the top of his list, cost co-boy, there trying to get a standing rib roast on monday, like we were, yikes, like grand central station. also, urban outfitters, michael coors, home depot not usually thought of as a holiday play, but sales growth there has not just been due to superstorm sandy. perhaps the biggest surprise, jc penney undergoing a positive turn, even as we speak, despite jack pin neigh appearing ton a do-or-die list for 2013, "the wall street journal." a big year ahead for ceo ron johnson, leads us to craig johnson's list of disappointments, ron johnson's old employer, apple, outside the apple store in the grove yesterday in l.a., yes, you heard me, he dissed apple.

well, kind of. a little. >> apple's been -- has had a tremendous success story for any number of years now, but we think in terms of traffic and what we see at the stores, things have peaked out a little bit. so, they will still have a good season, still be up strong double digits but wouldn't be the outsized growth we have seen for any number of years now. >> all right. johnson also says sacks has struggled a bit, though he says the shoe department has been fine. overall holiday growth sales blow ducks is still 2.8% but he says to meet that sales this week today, tomorrow and the weekend have to hit it out of the park, otherwise, he says close to 2%. compared to 5.8% growth a year ago. >> jane, thank you. i was doing some of my own personal channel checks yesterday at saks, they had to shut the shoe department in new york city the shoe department entire store, shut it down to 45 minutes to the horror of shoppers around me, too crowded

and too messy. >> do you go out you doing channel checks, as a secret shopper in disguise? >> i carry an empty bag to make it look like i was there for a reason. >> be on to you now. >> anyway, retail, no single hot item on the menu this year what trends are we seeing this holiday season? james fal isn't editor for women's wear daily. great to see you. >> hello. thank you. >> we talk about winners and losers, particularly in retail, got think about what they are selling and what price. so when you say the gap, old navy and victoria's secret were standouts this season what brought the shoppers in? was there a hot item this season? >> not one hot item per se, gap has been seeing a real turn around. i think the stores look better, the merchandise has been improved. the marketing has been improved. old navy as well, a surprise. victoria's secret, again, the merchandise is fantastic, lingerie a clear winner at holiday at all times, so, i mean, again, if you look at your channel checks, those stores

were generally per rehn y'ally crowded. i tend to agree with craig johnson, apple looked empty for what apple stores have been in the past. retailers like pandora generally crowded, charms a good buy. so you know, i think people were extremely cautious in what they bought this year and were very strategic and went in bought what they wanted and left. >> the gap, we just showed chat of the gap, monster 60% the past year, a turn around story, largely because at some point in time, they weren't getting their merchandise quite right you weren't hitting the fashion note he is, it seemed with the trend of the color denim, they sort of came into being, i'm wondering if you think they have gotten that problem straightened out at this point. is that over? >> it's not over. i think it is -- the ceo says it remains work in progress. i think they are on the path of recovery and turn around. but they still have a way to go before even, you know, gap executives would admit that they

are where they want to be. >> james, i have got a question about coarse, we know how successful the stock has been this year. it was trending, i think nationwide on christmas morning. how long lasting is their popularity and see any signs they may overshoot in the way a hilfiger did 10, 20 years ago? >> i think an excellent question. there is obviously that concern. they have huge potential still overseas. in the u.s. market, again, the growth story remains phenomenal. it has become the benchmark for fashion stocks. i think if you talk to retailers, women can't get enough of the mk handbag, the rose gold watch, not amount u.s. but overseas. the growth may slow in the united states a bit but still an immense growth story in overseas markets. >> james, what both say is what

do you read, who do you talk to know the stock will buy and it may double this year, what you are talking about here? >> i think the khors story, i think you look at a consistent collection, michael is -- he has strong brand recognition. he is a celebrity in his own right because of "project runway." i think it feeds into the strength of that brand. the product is consistent. the quality is consistent. the price point isn't astronomic astronomical. that is what you have to look at, how well known is the brand what is the quality and price -- what are the quality and price point and how squint the collection? you don't want to go into a company that's -- changes from one season to the next

drastically basically. >> james, as many parts of the country face severe weather today and over the next few days, in fact, retailers are already looking to getting rid of the inventory they have on the floors now in anticipation for spring. so, what are the trends that we should be looking at for investors to make sure our portfolios aligned with what is going to be hot and what will sell? >> in terms of this season, the weather is a very good point. i mean, a lot of people are stranded in airports, they are not out -- >> but in terms of spring, the next season? >> for spring, i think you're going to see again, color is going to be a very important story, accessories will continue to drive the market. you want to look at brands that have strong access source businesses. shoes and handbags are basically where the fashion business is a. we ran a story today hand bags are making a resurgence and shoes are driving the market the last year or so. look at companies that have strong accessory businesses, particularly handbags,

particularly footwear. a coach, michael kohrs, if it goes public. >> as far as a steer what's happening to the economy, hands up or down? >> they're kind of all over the place. generally, they're going a bit down. >> that means not so good, eh? >> not so good. you have to remember they've been trying to go down the last few seasons and women have long resisted that, not like you are seeing the long helms all over new york city. it really is what the customer buys opposed to what the designer pushes onto them. >> james fallon, women's wear daily. >> four days and count, how close could congress cut it if we get close to a fiscal cliff deal at all? representative peter welch with insight when we're back in two. let's give thanks -

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dow down 68. to rick santelli.

rick. >> this will be an unusual santelli exchange. 3.1 for population growth. not a software product. later on, i will be talking about an article so thought provoking, one of the areas it provoked me to think was slow growth rates or loafer tilt numbers. let's start at the beginning. all these facts, from health facts.org. if you want an expanding next generation, you have to have two parents and 2.1 kids to make the next generation larger. that is oversimplified. will tell you. things like mortality rate, boys versus girls, immigration, life expectancy. according to the fact book, look at their term, total fertility rate at replace mement globallys 2.33. for simplicity purposes, rlet's

keep it 2.1. let's look at the globe. i looked at the long list. at the top of the list with the highest fertility rates was niger. if we look at some good and negative ways. afghanistan, 5.64, iraq, 3.58. mexico, india, 2.58 and 2.27. here's why it's important. think about the big engines of economic growth in the world. france, 2.08. the u.s., 2.06, ireland, 2.01. in red, they're looking at next generations that will get smaller and smaller and smaller. the uk, well under 2. china, 1.55. we know they've actually implemented policies because they want to control population. in the bigger picture, fooling around with mother nature in this way could have hugely negative consequences. russia 1.43 and germany, 1.41.

at the very bottom of the list, other than certain countries where the information is not available, the bottom of this list was singapore at .78. i know we're dealing with so many issues nowadays and i blow a gasket over many of them, whether fiscal cliff, unfunded liabilities, at some point, growth is the answer. when you start considering where the engines of growth have been and what their population declines may be, it makes one wonder, where is the horsepower from global growth will come from and this at some point needs to affect the picks in your stock portfolio. back to you. >> rick, i'll take it from you, rick santelli. even starbucks is worried about the fiscal cliff. and we'll take you live to one of those location as they launch their initiative. back in two. to live a better retirement. it's called a reverse mortgage.

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♪ aids is going to lose. aids is going to lose. ♪ the clock is ticking and time is running out. only four days before the fiscal cliff. who will compromise and will a deal get done to save the u.s.'s economy? stay tuned to see who will rise above? the dow is currently down 75 although we know president is going to land in an hour or so. who knows what the situation will look like by the time "fast money" comes around. >> we do know we will have the chairman of lion's gate. up 88% and give us a preview of

the pipeline for 2013 and see if the stock can keep going. with the markets closed we will have a technical analyst on the market. looks like he is seeing a worse year for 2013. >> and then talk to italian conference members. >> absolutely. >> see you tonight. meantime, if you're just joining us, here's what you missed earlier on. >> welcome to hour three of "squawk on the street." here's what's happening so far. >> we're going to raise taxes and we're going to cut spending. both of those things will have something of a debilitating effect of the growth of gdp this coming year. >> we hear a lot of press release politics coming from elected officials, who wants to go over the cliff and who doesn't. it's in both sides' interest to get this done. they want a two year deal because no one wants to keep running on this stuff. >> the fed doesn't have a clue.

neither does the president, neither does congress! >> what geithner did yesterday almost as if he was strapping a damsel in distress to the tracks. >> i agree. >> and saying the stakes are even high sneer do we have room to adjust stakes accordingly and have impact on inflation and then currency markets. in the u.s., where are we? zero. there's no room to have any impact at this point. >> consumer confidence, 65.1. that is a far cry from the expectation of 70. >> the majority of rich people in our great country are willing to pay more. the only people who disagree with that are republicans who work in this building. >> good thursday morning. we're live at the north carolina

sto -new york stock exchange. things went smoothly but dow down 70 points and s&p almost nine and after comments from majority leader harry reid saying looks like that's where we're headed, ie the fiscal cliff and the president to arrive relatively shortly. and now down close to 2%, from the big banks to tech, nokia's lumen na phone is being sold at a discount, even being provided for free and nokia is down six cents on that news. kou consistent countdown to the cliff continues. leader reid says looks like we're going over and we will get info from peter welch. and why macafee is calling for rapid extension of

cyber-threats for 13. and a major storm delaying travel during this holiday season. one app is looking to make travel a little bit easier, the head of hot new app, travel nerd, will join us live. we'll start with the fiscal cliff, some newsbre breaking ine last hour, the president spoke with congressional leaders yesterday and the speaker saying the ball is still in the president's court. good morning to you. >> caller: good morning. >> are you back in town and fiscally where are you and how quickly might you expect to get back to diabetic .c. if you hav? >> i'm in vermont. republicans said they would give us 48 hours notice. do the math and looks like senator reid is saying what everybody already knows, we will fail to reach a deal before the 1st of the year. >> people were looking to reid and mcconnell to be the adults in the room so to speak.

i hope you won't mind that phrase. is that misguided? >> caller: speaker boehner has an impossible problem. he has a group in that caucus that won't vote for a nickel of new revenues. even with slight revenues and big cuts, they've killed it. it's just a practical problem he has. in the senate, you have the filibuster rule. unless everybody goes along with the deal, it won't happen. here's the good news. this is not so much a cliff, it really is much more of a slope. the fact is there's going to be a new congress, the newly elected people are going to be in congress. there's going to be fewer tea party folks and bottom line, the stability everybody knows we need will come from a decision that provides some center. i'd much rather get a good deal durable for the economy, even if it's after the first of the year rather than a bad makeshift deal

we pretend is doing something useful and just face saving by congress. >> there are some out there who believe and have long believed what will happen at year end, the irs will freeze withholding rates. there will be some kind of continues resolution to get the government funding into the year and some kind of compromise say before the state of the union. is that how you see it shaping up? >> i do. we don't need any continuing resolution. that's more-or-less right. you have literally 100% of members of congress who agree on one point. taxes should not go up for 98% of the people. you have wilful minorities in this house and in the senate, who want to make certain taxes stay lower for the top 2%. in a real world, most of the time you'd be able to resolve that. it's the really strange fiscal politics of washington that's been doctrinaire on the revenue

side. we all understood we have spending to balance. the president put $400 billion of reductions in medicare savings on the table. the majority of americans, including romney voters understand the obvious, that is revenues have to be part of the equation. this is a question -- why can't we do it is the head scratching question for most people. it's really part of the institution institutional paralysis of congress, you have a filibuster that enables the minority to work their will and stop even consideration of legislation. in the house, the speaker has to bite the bullet and put on the floor a bill that's going to get significant democratic support and some republican support. that's the only way to do what the country needs. >> and still keep his speakership is the trick. >> i think he can. i think the republicans voting no just don't want their

fingerprints on this. if boehner puts something on the floor that passes and they can vote against it, they will underspeaker boehner w was -- speaker boehner was doing the dirty work they were unable to do. >> i know you aren't watching the markets closely. would it alter the calculus at all? does it mean we get a framework in 24 hours if we lost a lot? >> caller: yes. i think the tragedy of what we're failing to do in congress we should do it on our own because it's our responsibility. the only way it looks like we do some of these things is after we get pistol whipped by the market. with the debt ceiling last august that was essentially what is about to happen. i think the market is going to punish us for our failure to act and may be the only thing that gets us to act.

>> finally, have you been to a starbucks lately? putting comments on coffee cups to get you guys put a deal together. >> caller: i'm in vermont and we are deficifferent coffee folks earl' earl's. >> a way to make a deal on the cliff, already ordering his grande cliff special to see for himsel himself. >> how are you doing, carl. we are 10 minutes from the white house and some of the more prominent washington d.c. think tanks are close by. all kinds of advice, if you will. here's the message from starbucks ceo, howard schultz, come together. and other locations.

very simple message, get down to it, do what's needed to be done to avoid going over the cliff on january 1st, a simple message on over 400 or so cups of coffee sold at this location just un recent hours. frankly, today is kind of a slowdow slowdown. >> customers are excited about it. i think the words "come together" means something deficit to all of us. in the spirit of the holidays, in an effort to bring all our political leaders, i think "come together" means a lot. >> now, this come together message will go not only on coffee cups in the area but across old and new media. when we sat down and talked to customers here, it really really resonates with what customers want to see done. >> they do need to come together and i think they need to get this settled before we do go off

the fiscal cliff because i think a lot of people are really stressed out. think that message "come together" is exactly what needs to happen. i'm frustrated by six, 10 people who think they can hold out to get their last little pork or thing into the bill, that seems unfortunate. >> of course, in the age of social media, in particular, no message of any kind goes untweeted. we did hear from house speaker john boehner's spokesman, brendan buck, who tweeted quote my capitol hill location did not have an inspirational message. i feel so lost. and so it goes. >> hampton, you've got that right. i wish i could tell you what's on the feed right now just about your report. thanks so much. hampton, in washington. brian sullivan has more. >> i would say apple is a major tech titan indeed. it has to do with pay.

two things. ceo tim cook not sure how he will eat. compensation from 3.78 milli$3. last year -- from $378 million last year. four our executives including gener general counsel getting awards and compensation of 66 million bucks or more each. they do vest in the next couple of years, not like they get money, restricted stock awards. i don't know about you, carl, i could do very well on $66 million. apple is engaged in a lot of lawsuits, probably no surprise the head of the legal team is getting a little something in his stocking this year. >> i can't imagine the damage you would do with that kind of cash. >> i would smash all the cars with my new monster truck with

solid gold rims. >> fiscal cliff aside, the biggest threats to your money and information online. a look at the worst of the web for 2013. find out the new area banks are turning to, hint hint, it involves the hunt for yield. rick santelli is looking for something. hi, rick. >> yes. in 10 or 15 minutes, you already saw me talk about fertility rates. the article, i have to admit was controversial and gave me a pit in my stomach and why i like to read bill freza, great author. coming up. seriously, you don't want to miss this one. want that pink ca. and you really don't want to pay more than you have to. only citi price rewind automatically searches for the lowest price. and if it finds one, you get refunded the difference. just use your citi card and register your purchase online. have a super sparkly day! ok. [ male announcer ] now all you need is a magic carriage.

citi price rewind. start saving at citi.com/pricerewind. citi price rewind. sfx- "sounds of african drum and flute" look who's back. again? it's embarrassing it's embarrassing! we can see you carl. we can totally see you. come on you're better than this...all that prowling around. yeah, you're the king of the jungle. have you thought about going vegan carl? hahaha!! you know folks who save hundreds of dollars by switching to geico sure are happy. how happy are they jimmy? happier than antelope with night-vision goggles. nice! get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

the market is not quite down 100 points but awfully close. there you go. down 100 points on the dow. that this is session low so far. we've seen continued negative sentiment as the senate has been in session. the president should land at andrews air force base in the next hour and see what that does to optimism about the deal regarding the fiscal cliff. and consumers on everything from cell phones to tablets could become vulnerable to cyber-crime. mcafee has released its 2013 predictions report and expect to see a rapid level of cyber-threats in the coming year. michele is the privacy officer of mcafee. good morning. >> good morning to you. >> strikes me as we all go mobile, talk about opening a new

doorway for thieves and criminals to enter, what does that mean for threats in the new year? >> it's really interesting. mobile is one of the places we're seeing a lot of new attacks. there's a couple deficit vectors for the attacks. the bump and steal attack. nfc, how you do mobile wallet. crooks are able to walk through crowds and literally bump into your phone and steal information from your phone. that's one of the attacks. the other thing is your telephone has turned into a powerful computing device and like you protect your pc and other devices, you need to think about protection on the phone itself from traditional hacking exploits. >> one of your predictions is a new mobile worm will go on a major shopping spree. you said digital wallet, you mentioned them already. we're getting used to paying with square or new google wallet. they have to be in some way

putting protective measures around those new products, aren't they? >> there are things the companies are going to do, part of getting us ready to do more and more mobile payments but things you need to do as a consumer yourself to prepare for mobile payments and other sorts of sensitive information. mobile payments are one thing on your phone but also personal photos and music things you paid for as well as oftentimess a blend of person and work e-mail. you need to be prepared on your ow as well as these companies and providers of technologies getting more and more sophisticated in protections they're providing for you. >> let's talk about hack thacks you call it. you say it will decline in 2013, is that good news or something take their place? >> they will be eclipsed a little bit by more and more nation states becoming prepared

and aware of cyber warfare and cybe cyber-attack. we will see more probing and testing of exploits to test the enemy's vulnerabilities and even our friends vulnerabilities. we will see more government sponsored people organizing themselves for warfare. >> you point out the government's military units are on the front line and technology and obvious targets. you talk about big scale attacks increasing. one of the things we worry about in this country is energy infrastructure and the grid. where does that rank on the list of concerns? >> it's very high and very connected. a lot of our economy is interconnected and these systems background systems, energy is certainly an important one. food supply is another one. energy, in the form of fuel for our vehicles is another one. those are things that could shut

down our economy or cause disruption, obvious places we need to be prepared about the information as well as the physical scale. >> you're with macafee and probably think of these things different than the lay person, are there everyday measures you take you try don vince your friends and colleagues as well? >> absolutely. change one or two passwords. make it hard for people to come look at your information. think about all your devices collectively. make sure you're using a people processing technology is the mantra of preparedness. we have lots of technologies to help you on every platform. also, how are you safe guarding those devices yourself? what are the processes you're doing at home and church and a group you hang out and share information. all these places, be aware making sure your cyber footprint is as small as possible and

making sure you are the toughest target to hit in the crowd. make sure your password is better than mine. >> i've taken to changing mine every couple months and that's probably not enough even doing that. thank you for your time. >> thank you so much. have a great holiday. >> the chief privacy officer at mcafee. >> there's a picture of air force one returning the president from his vacation in hawaii. some of this is about optics but set up expectations there will be last-go round here before year end to find some framework to resolve the fiscal cliff. we'll find out more a little bit later on. senator reid is having a news conference at b1:00 p.m. >> when we come back, the next global economic house may not be in asia. it may be different than you think. a look at international markets next year. and the "closing bell" in europe that had deficit

confidence numbers, not like in france. back in a couple minutes.

welcome back to "squawk" on the street. rick santelli here. third hour of "squawk." my favorite time of the day to bring in a special guest. today, bill does fit the bill. he wrote a piece, will aging childless voters enslave my future grandchildren. he did give me a bit of a cramp kind of intense. talks about how we used to take care of our families ourselves especially aging relatives and now we expect government to take care of everything and think we have a right to a house, retirement, right to stop working, throw demographics and utility rates. if this doesn't give you shivers, nothing will. will the problem with entitlement democracy is you eventually run out of other people's babies.

welcome, bill. tell us about your piece. i encourage everybody to read it. i don't agree with everything but got me speaking. >> thank you. you're too kind. sometimes you have to get people thinking and make an argument in the extreme. democracies around the world are engaged in a reckless gamble trying to replace the core fundamentals of family and look at julia, part of obama's campaign and role of families caring for the aged. from time in memorial people took care of elderly relatives who brought them into the world and a direct connection. that connection has been broken. we're now expected to take care of other people's parents and grandparents. this has consequences, economic consequences when you build ponzi pyramid schemes like social security and medicare and when young people consider children to be a cost and not a benefit. i had a good friend libertarian economist say to me, children are a cost.

why should i have children? think about what that does to society in the long term. >> you look at various parts around the globe and look at mayor bloomberg talking about 3 to 400 square foot apartments and some lifestyles in more wild parts of the countries and various cities, there's no room for kids and not even a thought process. let's face it, religion is on the slide in terms of the major politics are in the newspaper. let's talk about those. >> i'm not a regulation man but we are fooling with the cycle of life. the cycle of life means you replace yourself for the next generation. western economies rely on growth. you stop growing, you're like a sha shark, you die, we need to do that for the debts we're piling up. what fuels growth is the next generation of young workerings. young workers are not coming into the workforce. look at southern europe with

youth unemployment. take 15% youth unemployment in spain and compound that with the fact they stop having babies. what happens in a generation or two. >> i tell you, bill, you got me thinking, i encourage readers to read this. in some of the biggest developed economies pushed the most growth are below a 2% utility rate. this has to be dealt with at some point. back to you. >> thanks, rick. road trip and big bank is in highways an byways in the road for yield. we'll explain how. and actually. the lexus december to remember sales event is on. this is the pursuit of perfection.

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the european markets are closing now. >> holiday trade on both sides of the market and politics equal on both sides of the market. the market moved down more than in the united states. but generally positive. politics as a focus in the united states obviously with the fiscal cliff. in europe, all about mario monty, kicked off on friday when he resigned. he then said on sunday he'd work with coalition partners. on monday he laid out what he'd like his agenda to be. today, he is negotiating with other potential allies. two big questions come out. one of, what will the clash with silvio berlusconi be? he said his economy was crippled

and said the right would abolish property tax rises. the second more interesting question is whether or not monty in the game means the election result in february will be a less strong coalition to enact reform, which is clearly where we hope they will go as in keeping -- trying to keep the investor sentiment going. in rome, they actually auctioned 12 euros of bills. all the politics with berlusconi not really affecting the market. yields are low, confidence still in there. some italian banks rose on the back of that. not huge moves. you can see bpms, up 2.2%. in the center of europe where it was concentrated, other banks moved higher. i'll show you those, lloyds, in the netherlands. and one is a bank here.

a tragedy really in spain. essentially 350,000 small shareholders you could argue, were conned to buying the bankia stock when the government owned it last year. they had products based on subordinate debt. we learned the bank's net worth is minus 4 billion euros. in other words, these 350,000 ordinary shareholder, ordinary bondholders will likely be wiped out by the recapitalization process and starts tomorrow when they get money from brussels and michele will be in to tell you the senior debt holders and whether they will be wiped out. that's what you call symphony on all the characters. michelle will pick that ball up and run with it later. >> it's a sad story, the last time those people will rally around the flag. >> really disappointing and a huge amount of anger in spain.

>> thanks, simon. >> to bertha, still above 90 for crude. >> still above 90. we're almost across the board as the dollar has gotten a little bit stronger. a very interesting year. we're looking at the numbers, the first year you have wti nymex crude and brent crude where one is down and the other is up. nymex crude is the issue we've been talking about a couple years now, the infrastructure problem. part of the problem is we are producing so much more oil in the u.s. north dakota is now the third largest oil producing region here in the united states and the production there is up 50% year-over-year. the latest data are available from the energy department shows we produced about 21 -- a little -- almost 22 million

barrels in september, up from just under 14 million barrels the year before for this same month. the impact is without much of an infrastructure to get that oil to the big gulf coast refinery, we're seeing a big gut when it comes to curbing, the delivery hub for nymex and we have seen storage levels up 50% year-over-ye year-over-year. once we get pipelines going that might help but still seeing the pipeline increasing in north dakota and the one running north to south is expected to exhibitions spanned in january but not to make as big a difference as expansion and production. data will come out tomorrow because of the holiday. gasoline holding up fairly well and heating oil up fairly well and we will see if they can continue to lead the complex higher. >> bertha coombs at the nymex and mary at the big board

looking at things moving. and things were moving down. >> that's right. we have the dow jones industrial average recovering from triple digits, weighed down by a few things, weak consumer confidence numbers for november and comments from saturday harry reid the majority leader saying it's very likely we will go over the fiscal cliff and triggered the sell-off in the dow jones industrial average. you look at the s&p 500, it's been weaker as well, weaker throughout the session and now turning negative with fiscal cliff fears starting to build with just a few trading days left in 2012. to the measure of fear is up. in the last six sessions, up 31% and hit its highest levels since breaching the 20 level in the first five months. it is still less than half

during the debt crisis of 2011, much higher and we are seeing the fear increase slightly approaching the new year. taking a look at sectors, broad-based clients, telecommunications and utilities and discretionaries. the best performing sector this year, reversing its position from 2011 the worst performing sector. today, it's under pressure because of the crashed companies pulling back but there has been a rebound. as banks balance sheets have gotten healthier, going into 2013, will there be enough to drive the earnings in the beginning of the year. going from worst to first. utilities, the worst in 2011 and 2012 set up to be the worst performing sector. they were positive going into

hurricane sandy and the outage was positive on them. we want to check on retailers, some areas very weak yesterday when weak numbers came in for the past week of holiday spending. some stocksenti in an article of wall street journal saying it is a do or die year. >> see you in a little while. mary thompson. our 2012-2013 prediction continues. who could be the next heavyweight to emerge. michele joins us. am a very modest individual. i do things with great humility. you should pay attention to my predictions for next year because i got every single prediction for 2012 correct. >> rubbing it in. >> greece will stain the euro in

2013. that's what lang merkel wants and she's holding the purse strings. she wants to be re-elected and doesn't want any cost of contagion in. the cost on a relative basis is cheap. mexico is the next hot market. almost unnoticed, our southern neighbor becoming an economic stronghold on its own. legal and financial reforms have led to a growing middle class. as china gets more expensive, mexico becomes more competitive in manufacturing. africa disappoints classic emerging markets of russia, brazil and china slow down from their heyday and so-called frontier funds have been started with a focus on the next hot growth area, focusing on africa and many believe now is the time. this is an overgeneralization. the rule of law is not widespread enough in the

continent. there is a glimmer of hope such as sun nish sha. countries such as egypt still questionable. we have seen mass rioting there and growing concerns whether the new rule of law and new constitution will effectively protect investors. >> just a few years ago, there were maybe 10 frontier emerging funds. now, there's more than 300. they're the hot thing. remember, even if there is growth there, very little liquidity. that's not a real place for mom and pop investors. that's still a white knuckle place even if there is growth. >> i'm looking at global industries 52 week highs, turkey, france, uk. lithuania, japan. can those do well? >> i think so. they're coming off their bottom. europe 20 through wh-- europe 2 what was our 2008. >> you think merkel gets

re-elected? >> at this point. she seems to be doing okay. if merkel gets re-elected, she will be a major outlier. the general rule of thumb for almost all politician, you never survive a debt crisis. germany doesn't have a debt crisis, the rest of europe. she may survive compared to every other government. >> it will be fascinating to see if she wins how her policy changes with less political risk. >> once you don't have to battle the god of re-election, everything changes. >> as we have seen in this country. a winter storm slamming the east coast and impacting the northeast, after the break. the latest place banks are turning to in the hunt for yield. am [ male announcer ] don't have the hops for hoops with your buddies? lost your appetite for romance? and your mood is on its way down. you might not just be getting older. you might have a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t.

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coming up next on the halftime show, stocks may be cliff diving. we're finding opportunity. how to protect your money with just two trading days left in the year. after a great year, is it time to put housing stocks up for sale and one of our great ones saying he's shorting the half flyers. >> thanks. many consumers buying cars in the last six months have had an easier time getting a loan to do so. chalk it up to the markets. hey, kayla. >> that's because banks is a key

source of yield. you heard talk about housing normally the central business for banks and they're at all time lows. they're heading to autos. according to the fdic, banks contribute the biggest share of some 700 billion dollars to the auto industry. experts say fourth quarter will see a boon in new and used car sales because of hurricane sandy with a total of monthan a million cars and expect them to eat up a big piece of this business. just how hungry are they? some 40 banks circled the autocentric businesses. general motors bought one arm and the bank of canada bought the other and that bumped ally and replaced by wells fargo, down by a hair in the second quarter and up 20% in the last year. jpmorgan chase up, and west

virginia based up 1. the banks are opening up to riskier borrowers in the last six months according to the latest report. the average number dropped from 765 to 763 in the same quarter. used cars, 668, carl. the lower the borrower's credit, the higher the rates for lenders like banks. the lowest factor is how far down they go. there is a water market of significant 80 and some are starting to go below it. >> that sounds worrisome. back to the winter storm slamming the east coast. weather channel mike seidel has made his way from oklahoma to upstate new york. hey, mike. >> reporter: that's right. we've been following my travels on the air with you on msnbc.

in buffalo we picked up 11 inches, ending the snow drought and going into the storm, they only had 6 inches, and that said, they ended in good shape. it fell from 1:00 yesterday afternoon to 1:00 this morning and free and clear in new york. they used a lot of salt and a lot of plowing. they don't mess around up here. we still have issues today. talking about the outsider rondex. northern new england gets slammed with 12-18 inches of snow. burlington, the western suburbs of boston and loganton all wind and bangor, where the winds condition. checking laguardia and newark delays, about an hour to hour and a half. we still have a lot of cancellations today, upwards of 600. yesterday, we had over 1700 cancellations. things are improving slowly at

the airports as snow winds down in buffalo. next system due in saturday, looking like a much weaker event especially in the northeast. maybe 1-3 inch in philly and new york city. we have a couple days to look at that. right now, we're shoveling and smiling in buffalo because the economy got a boost here, snow plow operators, didn't get much snow last year but working hard digging us out of this one. >> a good chance you're watching this morning's ""squawk" on the street" at an airport. maybe you have to go to the bathroom before your next flight, need help with that? we might have found just the app for you. our "sq"squawk" on the verge" i next. when you have diabetes...

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as winter storms delay flights home this holiday season, one app is looking to make travel a little smother, website nerd wallet.

leading the travel products under the brand name. alishia, good morning to you. >> good morning. >> a product like this makes so much sense, at least to me. as people travel, it seems like the main source of frustration has to be the airport itself. is that borne out in the data? >> yes. that is exactly the premise we started to develop the app. we realized the air travel situation is really difficult. airfares are difficult. when we thought about what do you spend the most time doing, it's really getting to and from the airport, spending time in the airport before your flight. >> a lot of this has to do with comparing parking prices, if you want to find a duncan, want to know where there's wifi, how many airports is international and are there features i'm not listing? >> right now, we initially launched it, get something out for the holiday travelers with

53 airports, 28 domestic, 25 international but we're quickly expanding the number of airports we are including in our app. >> it might not cover a small regional airport you're going to but big hubs in this country will be covered. >> that's right. we chose our initial airports based on passenger volume and is the most popular ones. >> rental cars, another big one finding where they keep those cars. is that still part of it or to common. >> that's hopefully to come. we're focusing on airport shuttles and transportation and parking and how do you compare. in large areas like new york, we give a curated suggestions time versus costs, should i take a taxi or take a shuttle for instance. we have a lot of that qualitative information in there. >> a lot of these segments, we come to the revenue generation

question meaning how do you make the money? is this all supported by advertising or more to it? >> right now, everything is completely free to the user. we're not focused on generating revenue right now. the travel part of nerd wallet is brand new. we're looking to solve problems for travelers. >> we keep hearing airlines are cut back capacity. if you fly, you know that's true, planes are fuller, frequency not as good as an a few years ago. is that bad news for you guys if the travel trends in terms of number of passengers stabilizes or falls down year-over-year? think it's difficult for the travel industry as a whole. for us, we're a new entrance to the market and focused on the core of our parent company's mission, provide transparency in areas that lack transparency for consumers. i think it gives us a little bit more opportunity to finds out

with new trends how we can help travelers better and figure out how travelers are not being accommodated by current services. >> tell me more about nerd wallet, how long have you been around? how fast have you been going? should we see you guys bet bought up or go partner in years to common. >> nerd wallet was founded a few years back, focus on the mission, things difficult to understand, credit cards, checking cards, easier for consumers to find. we have lots of deficit tools based on each consumer's finance needs and findthy best checking account 0 ffor them. for us, in travel, it makes a lot of sense. we are looking how can we find the best travel experience for them.

we have a tool, airline comparison travel tool that helps them find the most affordable airline for them. the mission is quite similar. >> a lot of people helping you with the price, but when you're at the airport, another thing entirely. thank you. from nerd wallet. chicago drivers may ring in the new year with reluctance. beginning january, they will shell out more in downtown parking meters than any other city in the country. it will rise to $6.50 an hour, double what drivers paid in '08. we want you to complete the following sentence for $6.50 an hour to park at a metered spot in chicago, it better be able to blank. we'll get some answer is in a moment. [ cows moo ] [ sizzling ] oo

beginning in january, chicago drivers will shell out more for drnt paowntown parkings than any other u.s. city. for $6.50 an hour to park at a metered spot, it better be able to blank? >> it